A LYME REGIS woman who suffers from the debilitating Lyme dis ease went to Downing Street yesterday to fight for better treatment of the illness. Aimee Fay, 36, from Pine Walk, went with other suf ferers from across the UK to present the health secretary John Reid with new guide lines on the diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Mrs Fay, who is originally from New York, has had the disease, named after Lyme in Connecticut USA, for over 20 years. Like all sufferers she caught the disease as the result of a tick bite. Mrs Fay funds her own treatment for the illness, which costs her £750 a month, because she says the NHS will not pay for it. She says in America med ical professionals are more aware of the disease and care for sufferers is more advanced than here. In the UK, says Mrs Fay, not as much is known about the disease and it can often go undiagnosed. She said: "Most of us - UK sufferers - before finding out what we had were misdi agnosed with ME. "In America everyone knows someone with Lyme disease and we are bom barded with information about it." NHS guidelines on Lyme disease, said Mrs Fay, are outdated and prohibit med ical professionals from pre scribing the correct treat ment - usually the long-term use of antibiotics. She said the disease had affected most of her adult life and had ruined her pro fessional life. Some of her symptoms included muscle and bone pain, neurological problems, recurring fevers, sore throats, hearing loss, palpi tations and headaches. She said: "That's the diffi culty with it. It can mimic so many different diseases." Yesterday, Mrs Fay pre sented a portfolio of case histories from sufferers across the UK to Mr Reid. She also presented the health minister with new guidelines from American medical professionals in the hope that they would bring about a change in domestic treatment of the disease. Also with Mrs Fay was Wendy Fox from Rotherham, a former zoo worker who had so many tick bites she was also co- infected with other diseases which made her illness much more severe. Mrs Fox is paralysed from the waist down and in con stant pain due to the effects of Lyme disease. A website, www.wendysly mefund.co.uk, has been set up to help Mrs Fox raise funds for her treatment